shillings under Nares's patronage. While inquiring after the amount, he saw Mr. Mowbray Smith coming along the alley, and was more amused than shocked at the amazement his own presence there would cause the Curate; but just then he perceived that men were standing scowling at their doors, and slovenly women thronging out like ants when their hill is disturbed: and asking an explanation from the damsel in earrings who attended to him, he heard that 'the chaps are determined that that there Smith shall not have the impudence to show his face here again, for a hypocrite, defrauding of the poor. You'd best be away, young gents, there will be a fracaw!'
'A row!' cried Bernard, between excitement and alarm. 'Shall we stay and see it? Won't Smith spy us?'
Lance deigned no reply, but seeing the rough-looking men gathering as if to obstruct the Curate's way, he shot across the street to shake hands with him.
'You! I am sorry to see you!' said Mr. Smith severely; at which Lance gave what under other circumstances would have been an impudent smile, and asked, 'Have you anywhere here to go?'
'I am just come away from a sick man. But you know how wrong it is to bring your little brother here. Take him away,' he added, trying to prevent them from joining him, and at the same time a voice shouted, 'Let him alone, young gents, he aint your sort;' and a hissing and hooting broke out all round, 'A parson as ought to have his gown pulled over his head!'
'What's gone of the coals?' 'How about the blankets?'
Bernard got a tight grip, out of sight, of Lance's coat; Mr. Smith grew red and bit his lips; but Lance walked close to him, and as they began to be jostled, took his arm, holding the blue sunshade over both their heads. Unsavoury missiles began to fly; but a woman screeched, 'Bad luck to ye, ye vagabone! ye've ruinated the young gentleman's purty blue umberella!'
'Down with it, young chap,' called another, 'or ye'll be served with the same sauce!'
'Serve un right too!' was the rejoinder. ''Tis they Underwoods, as never stands up for poor men's rights, and is all for the tyrants.' (All this full of abusive epithets.)
'Who said that?' broke out Lance, beginning hastily to close his umbrella, and trying to wrench his arm from Mr. Smith; 'I'm ready for him.'
But Mr. Smith, with an angry 'Are you mad?' held him fast; and his struggles provoked a good-humoured laugh at the little champion, still so white and slight.
'No, no,' said a big powerful man, collaring a great lad who had been thrusting forward at Lance's defiance, 'we don't have no mills with natomies like you! Go home and mind yer own business. Your father was another guess sort of parson, and I'll not see a finger laid on you. Be off, till we've given that other bad lot a bit of our mind.'
'Not I!' growled Lance. 'I'll have it out with that rascal there.- Nonsense, Mr. Smith; I can, I say-and I will!'
But the big man and Mr. Smith were perfectly in accordance this time; and without a word between them, the impulse of the coal-heaver's weight somehow opened a path, where, shoved by the one, and dragged by the other, Lance was at the corner-then round it-the crowd followed no farther.
'A plucky little chap that!' quoth the coal-heaver to Mr. Smith. 'You may thank your stars that he's his father's son, or it would have been the worse for you! And if ever you show the face of you here again, you know what to expect.'
'I expect nothing but what I am willing to receive in my Master's service,' said Mr. Smith, firmly meeting his eyes. 'Meantime, thank you for the help you have given me with these boys. Good morning. You will judge me more fairly another time.'
The man added another contemptuous oath to those with which he had freely laden his discourse; but Lance paused a moment to say, 'Thank you too, you meant it well; but I wish you'd have let me have it out with that foul-mouthed cad.'
'Wait till ye're a match for him, and welcome,' said the man. 'Bless ye! what could that fist do with Black Bill?'
'For shame, boys! come away,' said the infinitely disgusted Curate, and not a word was spoken down the first street, Bernard was still trembling with excitement, and Lance, conscious perhaps that though his interference had answered his purpose, he had been betrayed into what he now saw to have been absurd.
At last the Curate spoke, his naturally harsh voice wavering a little between reproach and acknowledgment. 'I am very sorry for all this, Lancelot Underwood. I believe you joined me out of a kind and generous feeling, of which I am sensible; otherwise, I should feel it my duty to report to your brother where I met you.'
'You are quite welcome,' said Lance, coolly.
'And I must say,' continued Mr. Smith, 'that if your whole training, as well as your recent severe illness, do not withhold you from such associations, at least I entreat you to pause before leading your little brother into them.'
Lance made no answer, except to halt at a public drinking fountain, to wash away the damage his umbrella had sustained; and there, with a serious 'Take care!' the Curate left the brothers.
'Catch me going to his help again!' exclaimed Bernard, entirely unconscious that his own gratitude to Lance was on a par with Mr. Smith's. 'He may get out of the next row as he can!'
'Ah! Bear! You see how you are corrupting my innocent youth!'
'A meddling donkey! I wish he had a rotten egg in each eye! Now it will all come out.'
'What will?'
'Where we have been.'
'That's the best thing that could happen.'
'You don't mean that you mean to let it out?'
'If you expect me to tell lies for you, you are out there.'
'But, Lance, Lance,' in an agony, 'you wouldn't be such a sneak, when I trusted you?'
Lance laughed. The bare idea of betrayal seemed so absurd, that he scarcely thought it worth removing.
The two were slackening their pace as they saw Felix at the carriage-door of a lady customer; and Lance said gravely, 'I'll see to Mother Goldie; but now, Bear, that you are out of this scrape, I give you fair warning, that if I find you grubbing your nose into that sort of thing again, I'll put a stop to it, one way or another.'
'I'm not a bit worse than the rest. All the other fellows do it.'
'Oh, I suppose, if you think Stingo the right thing in dogs, you think Nares the right thing in fellows!'
At that moment the customer drove off, and Felix having spied the blue sunshade, tarried at the door to administer a remonstrance to Lance on being so foolish as to venture into the noon-day sun. He was not able to come in to dinner till it was half over, and then it was with a merry look and question, 'What's this, boys, about Mowbray Smith being mobbed in Smoke-jack Alley and your making in to the rescue?'
'Oh,' said Lance, 'there was an attempt at getting up a shindy, but it was of the meanest description. No one knew how to set about it. There was only one Irishman there, and he was a woman.' (This with a wink to Sibby.)
'And you didn't offer to fight big Ben Blake?'
'Ben Blake, on the contrary, elbowed us all safe out, because my father was another guess sort of parson!'
'And there was a horrible little cad making faces,' exclaimed Bernard, unable to resist claiming part of the glory,' and I was just going to have pitched into him-'
'What-you saw the row getting up, and went to stand by Smith?' said Felix.
'Yes,' said Bernard boldly; 'and nobody durst lay a finger on him when we were on each side of him!'
At which everybody burst out laughing, including Mr. Froggatt, and Lance most of all. 'Who was it then,' he struggled to say gravely, 'that pulled so hard at the back of my coat? I suppose it must have been some little cad. I thought it had been you.'
'Well, it was time to hold you back, when you were going to fight that great lout!'
'For my part,' said Lance, 'I think it must have been Smith and I that were holding the Great Bear back by his tail from fighting big Ben Blake. Eh?'
Bernard, never able to bear being laughed at, looked intensely sulky, and a true description of the affair being asked by Mr. Froggatt, Lance gave it, exactly enough, but with so much of the comic side that every one was in fits of merriment, all of which, in his present mood, the younger boy imagined to be aimed at him. He was too full of angry self-consequence really to attend, so as to see how entirely disconnected with himself the laughter was; all he cared for was that Lance should not betray him; and to assure himself on this head, it must be confessed that he
